


A Day at the Fair

by alli_ambroise



Category: Dexter's Laboratory
Genre: Dexter Has a Fear of Heights, Drabble, Gen, Hinted feelings, M/M, No Plot/Plotless, Oneshot, Secret Crush, Summer, dexdark, skytrams, somewhat male slash, somewhat slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:09:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22993735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alli_ambroise/pseuds/alli_ambroise
Summary: Dangling 30 feet in the air trapped with his worst enemy was NOT how Dexter pictured a day at the fair.This is a practice drabble/oneshot. You can certainly view it as slash if you want to.
Relationships: DeeDee & Olga, Mandark Astronomanov/Dexter
Comments: 1
Kudos: 38





	A Day at the Fair

**Author's Note:**

> This drabble? oneshot? was inspired by a county fair I went to 2 years ago. Just like me, it goes absolutely nowhere. This may turn into a series of practice drabbles with their various antics at the fair but no real plot.

The Huber County Fair was a tumultuous affair, boasting over 200 acres of rides, exhibits, games, and food. So much food. This year's theme was How Sweet it is. DeeDee had been dying to go ever since she saw this year's theme on the website, coupled with the promises of the famous Unicorn Donut.

His dad had initially caviled when he saw the cost ("$20 dollars per person? This is highway robbery-"). But then his mother had seen the Home & Hobby Exhibit for local quilters, and from there it had been settled that they were all going.

Dexter didn't mind going to the fair. Truthfully, he was interested in exploring the Science, Drafting, & Technology Student Showcase. Only high schoolers aged 15 and up were allowed to submit designs or projects - so in another year, he'd be able to enter. It would certainly be amusing to check out what constituted his so-called 'competition'.

He should have known that said competition would also be going to the Fair.

DeeDee was the one who spotted the Astronomanov family first, once they had gotten past the turnstiles.

"OLGA!" DeeDee's shriek would break the sound barrier if it were any louder.

"DeeDee, don't run off-" His mother called, but to no avail. DeeDee had already bounded over to Olga and was giving her a big hug. They looked like sisters in their matching pink tutu's. Dexter rolled his eyes. "I'll handle her, Mom." He could tell already that Olga and DeeDee were going to be inseparable today.

"Well, alright…" His Mom said, glancing at her watch. "We'll meet back at the entrance at the end of the day, okay? 5PM sharp."

Dexter nodded, and separated from his parents to go after his crazy sister.

As he approached, he saw Mandark leaning coolly against the wall, arms crossed and looking distinctly bored as Olga and DeeDee chattered.

"Dexter," he greeted, the hint of a smirk at the edges of his lips.

"Mandark," Dexter grumbled back, crossing his own arms and lifting his chin as high as he could. Even with Mandark slouching slightly against the wall, Dexter was still shorter than him by a good inch. But at least his recent growth spurt in high school was helping him to catch up, albeit not as quickly as he would like.

“Since when does a labrat like you expose himself to sunlight?” Mandark quipped, his hazel eyes glittering with amusement.

“This coming from the guy who tried to make a vampire serum?” Dexter retorted.

Mandark tilted his head, the smirk on his face now on full display. “I didn’t _try_ , I succeeded,” he said.

“Oh yeah?” Dexter narrowed his eyes, glaring up at Mandark. "I'm surprised it didn't blow up in your face - like all your other experiments."

"You keep thinking that, but just know I'm always one step ahead of you, _Dorkster_."

In a fit of paranoia, Dexter glanced at his surroundings. "What diabolical schemes have you cooked up today, Mandark? Did you replace the animatronics in the Maze with your hideous creations?" He jabbed a finger at Mandark's chest, "Or perhaps you're planning to blow up the Ferris wheel? Eh?" The way Mandark was smirking back down at him was somehow even more infuriating than when he talked.

Olga detangled herself from DeeDee's embrace and pointed at them. "You two nerds better not blow up the fairgrounds today. DeeDee and I want to have _fun,_ got it?" She drew herself up to her full height. Even though she was the shortest of all of them, she was easily the most terrifying.

Mandark sighed. "We couldn't even if we wanted to. They took my plasma ray at security check."

"Why on earth would you bring a plasma ray to a fair?" Dexter asked.

Mandark shrugged. "I take my plasma ray everywhere," he said, as if this was a perfectly logical explanation.

But before he could reply, DeeDee interjected.

“Guys, can we just have _one_ day where you two aren’t at each other’s throats?” She added. “Please?”

“Whatever. As long as he behaves himself, we’re good,” Dexter said, shooting a glare at Mandark, who just returned his look with that maddening smirk of his.

“I’m always on my worst behavior when I’m around _you_ , Dex,” Mandark said with a strangely unnerving tone, his hazel eyes dark and unreadable.

Dexter faltered, unsure of what to make of Mandark’s response. He had been doing that a lot lately, ever since they had entered high school. Sometimes he would look up in class and find Mandark staring at him from across the room with an inscrutable expression.

Mandark looked up sharply at the sound of their sisters giggling. Olga was standing on tiptoes, whispering into DeeDee’s ear with one hand covering her lips. With the cacophony of noise from the fair-goers all around them, Dexter couldn’t make out the words, but whatever they were talking about was apparently of extraordinary entertainment value judging from the look on DeeDee’s smiling face.

“What are you two talking about?” Mandark glared at Olga.

Olga stuck her tongue out at him and turned to DeeDee, “Y’know we could go ahead and ditch these two nerds. Give them some _alone time._ ” There was a mischievous glint in her eyes.

“Naaaah,” DeeDee said, nodding at Dexter. “I don’t want Dexter getting lost - again.”

Dexter felt his lips turning into a pout before he could even think he said. “I was _six!”_ He pointed at DeeDee accusingly. “And _you’re_ the one who lost _me_ in the crowd - not the other way around!”

“Aww, don't blame her. It’s so easy to lose you when you’re so short,” Mandark grinned, and all of a sudden Dexter felt the pressure of his hand ruffling his red curls. “You could stand behind a neutrino and nobody would find you.”

Dexter instinctively swatted at the offending hand. Mandark just smirked and used his free hand to grab Dexter’s wrist, and for a second Dexter felt himself being pulled towards him with the momentum of his pull. For a second, they seemed like they would devolve into one of their typical slap fights, until DeeDee interjected with a, “Come on guuuuuuys,” in a chastising tone. “Cut it out!”

Mandark dropped Dexter’s hands, holding his hands up with palms out in a gesture of surrender. Dexter ran a gloved hand through his tangled curls, not that it fixed much.

“Just pick something to do already,” he grumbled. The sooner they got to the fair, the sooner he could find a way to ditch this group.

“Hmmmmmm,” DeeDee looked around. “Well we could eat, orrrr we could play a game, orrrrrr....”

She was looking around with that classic _too-many-decisions_ stare. Then, all of a sudden, she snapped her eyes up.

"The Skyride!" DeeDee shouted, flailing her arms. "Let's go, let's go!" 

Dexter looked up at where his maniac of a sister was currently pointing. Above them, suspended approximately 30 feet in the air, other fairgoers were sitting and chatting with one another on pink benches that traversed steel cable lines to the other side of the County Fair. The back of each bench was decorated with brightly colored unicorns to keep with the theme of the fair.

"Absolutely not," Dexter said, perhaps a little too quickly.

Mandark caught his eye and quirked a brow.

“You don’t like heights?” Mandark tilted his head, a devilish grin on his face.

Dexter crossed his arms. “I - I simply don’t want to go on it,” he said, feigning disinterest. "It's boring."

“Uh-huh,” Mandark said with a penetrating stare.

Dexter felt his mouth go dry and broke eye contact.

“Come on, it’ll be FUN!” DeeDee said. “Just like swings, but higher!”

“You’re not supposed to swing on them,” Dexter pointed out, but this sensible comment went ignored by everyone in the party.

Any reservations he had about the matter were steamrolled by his sister, who took the liberty upon herself to grab Dexter and Olga's hands in each of her own and drag them over to the ride.

A tired-looking woman was at the Skytram gate. For a brief moment, Dexter thought that they wouldn't be able to ride because they had no money to buy the tickets. But then Mandark had pulled out his wallet and paid for all of them with his dumb library money - curse him and his stupid job. 

The Skytram gatekeeper rattled off a set of monotone instructions - no swinging, arms and legs inside at all times, and handlebar down at all times while in the air.

Dexter noted with muted horror that the ride did not even have seatbelts.

"Two to a ride," the Skytram ticket taker said, opening the gate to let them through. "Stand at the mark," she gestured to the ground, where Dexter spied a crudely drawn X. "Face that way and sit down once it comes over. Don't forget to put the handlebar down."

"Wait-" Dexter said, watching as the chairs came down the cable line. "It doesn't even stop? Not even for a quality assurance check?"

"Nope," the lady said, shrugging. "Enjoy the ride."

Before Dexter could protest, she had walked away to attend to the next customers.

DeeDee and Olga had already bounded up to the X, both of them raising their hands and falling back into the moving chair as it swept them off their feet.

"WEEEEEE!" DeeDee's shriek combined with Olga's gleeful squeal as they were lifted up in the air. They put the handlebars down after a full minute of ascent - not that the Skytram gatekeeper even cared.

"C'mon, Dex-" Mandark pulled him by the arm to the X. "Time to go."

Dexter tried to dig his heels into the ground, but Mandark jerked him forward, and before he knew it he felt the hard metal of the chair hit the back of his knees and make them buckle. He tumbled backwards onto the Skytram chair - his stomach doing a flip as he felt his center of gravity shift. The chair tilted backwards from their combined weights, and out of instinct he scrambled for a foothold - and found nothing but open air beneath his boots.

He couldn't hold back a scream as the chair began to tilt forward to compensate for the angle. The plastic was slippery against his lab coat - and for a moment he swore that he was going to fall forward and faceplant onto the ground. 

Suddenly, he saw Mandark's arm whip out quick as a flash, and bring the overhead handlebar down. It clicked smoothly into place.

"Were you even listening earlier?" Mandark asked. "Or do you have a death wish?" 

"I-I-" Dexter stammered, his heart in his throat preventing him from speaking intelligibly. He gripped onto the handlebar tightly. "J-just, shut up, Mandark!" He finally managed, glaring sideways at his rival.

Mandark was leaning forward on the handlebar with both elbows. His dark bangs lifted in the breeze, and his olive-shaped eyes regarded Dexter with merciless amusement.

"I can't believe you're scared, Dex," Mandark teased, interrupting his terrified observation of the fairgrounds below. As Dexter glanced over at him, he saw Mandark's eyes shining with mirth. "Your mecha is taller than this."

Dexter scowled. "I don't trust anything that I didn't build myself."

All of his mechs, of course, had a plethora of safety features in the event of a crash. Or giant robot attack.

"Fair," Mandark grinned, "After all, who knows what credentials these Skytram engineers have? They were probably dropouts from a community college who couldn't make it at Disneyland."

"Sounds like your future career path," Dexter said, trying to hide his anxiety with irritation. He glanced away, determined to focus on something - _anything_ \- else than this death trap of a ride. His eyes spied DeeDee and Olga up ahead, bouncing in their seats and swaying back and forth in their chair. It felt as though the vibrations from their motions was going to make the whole line shake.

Gulping, he looked away and found himself looking down at the ground instead. They were ascending at a languid pace of approximately 5mph. He watched as the ground got further and further away with each passing second. He inhaled sharply at the sight, suddenly feeling as though his lungs were shrinking. What altitude were they flying at? The rational part of his brain supplied that oxygen levels did not change dramatically until at least 3000 feet, so why did it feel as though he couldn't breathe?

"You know, they say not to look down when you're scared," Mandark said, interrupting his thoughts.

Dexter glared at him. "I am not _scared,_ " he insisted.

Mandark smirked and rapped against the back of the bench with his knuckles. "How structurally sound do you think this cable car is?" he asked. "Do you think they used steel, or aluminum?"

"Does it really matter?" Dexter snapped back.

Their chair was now approaching the peak of its ascent.

"Depending on the material, they could have miscalculated the tensile force required to hold us up. A powerful gust of wind could easily send us crashing to our imminent doom."

Dexter looked down at the throngs of people at the fair, bustling to and from various food stands, arcade games, and gift shops. They looked like ants below him. What altitude was this rickety contraption flying them at?

Mandark continued, a sly smirk on his face, "Can you imagine? Our cable car becoming decoupled from the line…"

"Shut up, Mandark," Dexter was starting to panic now. In his mind's eye he could already see the possibility - curse his overactive imagination!

"Both of us accelerating down at a force of 9.81 meters per second squared…"

Dexter gripped the handlebar even more tightly, feeling that if he did not he would surely slide out of the seat and onto the oblivious passersby below.

"…our heads splitting open like watermelons and our brilliant brains spilling onto the pavement…"

" _Shutupshutupshutup_ …" Dexter covered his ears with both of his hands. Riding with DeeDee would have been better than this torture!

The cable car swayed gently in the summer breeze, not enough to be life threatening, but certainly enough to make Dexter grab desperately at the first solid object he came into contact with.

Which happened to be Mandark's arm.

Then Mandark chuckled. Dexter looked up, finding himself locked in hazel eyes and feeling dizzy from more than just the feeling of being suspended at this vertiginous height.

"Relax, Dex…" Mandark said, fixing Dexter with a stare that he couldn't quite interpret. "You're actually safer with me than with DeeDee, you know."

"…Why's that?" Dexter found himself asking.

Mandark lifted his left hand and twisted his wrist back and forth. "If the gyroscope detects a sudden shift in my center of gravity, it instantly teleports me and anyone I touch to the confines of my laboratory, safe and sound." His watch glinted in the afternoon sun, the silver dials and face a stark contrast to the black watch band.

With a swift motion, Mandark grabbed Dexter's wrist, pulling him in close as he leaned forward. "So if you're scared, hold onto me."

Dexter's mouth gaped open, but he could find no witty retort with which to devastate Mandark. All he could feel was his heart pounding against his ribcage, and all he could see was the way his hazel eyes glinted in the sun, mocking and bright. Breathlessly, he stared into their depths, gazing down thousands of miles into the soul of his one true rival.

A maddening thought flitted in the back of his mind, like a tiny scrap of paper caught in the eddies of a breeze. A concept that was on the cusp of incipience - barely a semblance of an idea that he dared not elaborate on for fear of its implications.

The Skytram jolted as it passed over its last pulley, denoting the shift from horizontal travel to a sloped incline. Dexter tore his eyes away, moving his hand back to hold onto the bar.

"Hah - like I'd trust your flimsy device," Dexter tried, feeling the edge in his voice fall flat.

He practically heard Mandark's shrug in his voice. "Suit yourself, Dex."

The chair began its slow but steady descent back to the fairgrounds. He could already see DeeDee and Olga chatting happily away.

Wordlessly, the two genii exited the Skytram, with Dexter practically scrambling to put as much distance as possible as he could between himself and the ride. DeeDee was already whisking them away to their next destination, and Dexter made a point of sticking to her side and avoiding Mandark entirely.

Still, as they left the Skytram unloading area, he couldn't help but glance back at Mandark and overhear his conversation with his little sister.

"So, did you enjoy the view?" Olga asked, elbowing her brother none too lightly. 

"Oh yes," Mandark said, eyes flicking over to Dexter. "Most definitely."

Reddening, Dexter turned his attention forward and focused instead on finding DeeDee that elusive Unicorn Doughnut. 


End file.
